A Cribbage Club Fish Story

Something from the tackle box:

       You wonder why the Lord pays no attention when you go without eating and act humble.  But on those same days that you give up eating, you think only of yourselves and abuse your workers.  You even get angry and ready to fight.  No wonder God won’t listen to your prayers!  (Isaiah 58:3-4 CEV)

       Not every fishing story I get comes from my own recollection, (whether that recollection of mine is based on my own experience, my imagination, or a combination of both, is beside the point here).  Sometimes a good story comes to me totally second-hand.  I’ve told a few stories that I’ve gotten from other folks over the years, and while I haven’t claimed them to be my own stories, about me, I have usually told them in a way that might lead one to presume that I could have at least been a witness to the tale being told, if not an actual participant.  It’s an old literary device.  Homer certainly did not sail with his heroes to Troy and back, yet who can dive into the Iliad or Odyssey without feeling that the poet is recounting from more than mere “hearsay” knowledge of the adventure. 

       In any event, I’m going to break with that old writing tactic today and relate a story that I heard, not as if I’m placing you at the scene of the story, but as if I’m letting you hear the story along with me, as I’m hearing it for the first time.  I’m not sure if this is going to work, but here goes!

       This is a story that I heard a few weeks ago at my Monday afternoon cribbage gathering, which meets in the basement fellowship hall of the church I work at, which is why it’s called the Church Basement Cribbage Club.  The members of this group are not an overly competitive bunch of card players.  Some of them are pretty good, myself included, but mostly we just play for the opportunity to socialize.  We don’t even keep track of who beats who, or how many games someone wins on a day that we play.  It really is all about just having a good time playing cribbage together.  A Monday without wining a single card game is a minor annoyance.  A Monday without a good laugh is a total disaster.  So you can know that the conversation is every bit as important as the cards at the CBCC, and probably even more so, if the truth be told. 

The church basement cribbage club

       We will generally have about eight to a dozen people show up to play every Monday.  Most of the people who show up to play are either members of the church we meet at or another local congregation, but a few of them are not, and that’s fine.  While we do not allow any swearing, cursing, or otherwise gratuitously vulgar language to be used at our gatherings, nor any derogatory expressions towards any race, creed, ethnicity, or group identity other than our own, be they couched as attempts at humor or not, - still, - not every story told at Cribbage Club can be classified as overtly genteel.  This is one such story. 

       Now, you should know that our conversations aren’t just ‘one on one’ chatter with the person sitting across the board from you.  The train of quips , jokes, and good natured jabs, can run side to side, up and down the long table filled with cribbage boards and card players, and quite often does. 

       To set this up, I was sitting at the far left hand end of the long table, with the row of games and players running off to my right, across from me sat my opponent, Roger, a nice man, about my age, who, due to an accident early in life deals with some health issues that require him to employ an assistant to drive and help with other tasks that facilitate his active lifestyle.  Next to me, on my right, sat Heather, Roger’s assistant on Monday afternoons, and a pretty good cribbage player, too.  Heather is probably the youngest player at our club, still having children of her own living at home, whereas most of the rest of us are into grandchildren, if not great-grands.  It is Heather who is going to be telling the story you will be listening in on.  Across the table from Heather sat Marcia, at the age of eighty something, a lifelong member of my congregation.  Don’t let Marcia’s age fool you though, she’s pretty sharp, and likes to tell or hear a good story as much as anybody.  On Heather’s right sat my church organist, Linda, playing a game against her husband Jim, a couple who would rather laugh at a good story than do just about anything else in life. 

       So, the six of us are clumped together at one end of the row of card games, chatting away as usual, and the conversation was about the warm winter we’d just come through, and the ice going out of the local lakes so early, when Jim says to me, “You like to ice-fish, don’t you pastor?  Were you able to get any ice-fishing in at all this winter?”

       “Well, I do a little ice-fishing, now and then,” I replied.  “Some folks were out on Jordan Lake for a couple of weeks back in January, but I didn’t get out one single time this year.  Mostly because I’m a chicken and don’t go out on the ice unless it’s a good eight inches thick, which I don’t think it ever came close to this year.  And I don’t think it’s going to freeze over again before spring is really here, so, no.  No ice fishing for me this year at all.” 

       Heather then adds, “Well, my uncle Joe was just out ice-fishing on the Flint River just a few weeks ago.  Didn’t get anything though.”

       Marcia looked puzzled and said, “That’s not all that far north of here, I’m surprised they had enough ice to go out on.”

       “Oh, they had enough ice,” Said Heather.

       “I never go ice fishing on a river,” I added.  “Even in a cold winter, those currents running underneath the ice can wear it pretty thin.  And if you do go through, that same current will take you downstream with no hole to come up through.”

       “Lots of folks ice-fish on the Flint River. – But my uncle Joe won’t be fishing it again – not for a while. – Or, at least not until he gets some new line on his ice-fishing rod.”

       At this comment, I’m feeling a little puzzled too.  Why would new line be a big issue?  I look across at Roger, then over at Marcia, and down at Jim, who are all looking at Heather for some additional enlightenment. 

       Heather just continued looking at her cards, deciding which two to toss to Marcia’s crib.  So I asked, “Was his line getting old and brittle?  Did a fish break it off too easily?  Or did a big one run it all out on him?” 

       “No, - nothing like that,” she replied.  Then, looking up from her cards and noticing our attention, she continued, “OK, - so my uncle Joe goes out ice fishing.  He parks his truck at the boat landing, walks out on the ice, and he’s the only one out there fishing that morning.  So, he walks out to his spot, drills a hole, and starts fishing.  Well, in a little while, another truck pull up and parks.  This other guy walks out, drills another hole, not six feet away from my uncle’s hole, and he sits down and starts fishing right there too!”  

       Now, you don’t even have to be an experienced fisherman to guess that this is not good fishing etiquette.  Fishermen, of both ice and open-water varieties, may congregate in an area where the fish are known to be hanging out, and it’s allowable to walk or paddle up to another angler just to pass a few pleasantries before you drop your own line, but you should always move off, a good thirty yards or more, before drilling a hole or making a cast, unless you’re invited to stay closer.  It’s just good manners. 

       “Well, - that was pretty rude!”  I said.

       “Yeah, it sure was!  What did your uncle Joe say to the guy?”  added Jim. 

       Heather thought for a minute before continuing.  “Well, - he didn’t say anything.”

       “He didn’t say anything!”

       “Nope. – He just got up, - walked over to the guy, - unzipped his coveralls, - and peed in the guy’s fishing hole.” 

       At this point, I look over at Roger.  He’s staring at Heather with his jaw dropped.  I look at Marcia, and she’s staring at Heather with her jaw dropped too.  I look over at Jim and Linda, and they’re looking at each other, each biting their bottom lip trying not to start giggling. 

       “Oh my lands!” Marcia finally broke the trance.  “What did that guy say to your uncle Joe when he did that?!” 

       “He didn’t say anything either. – He just stood up – and socked my uncle Joe right in the face.” 

       I looked at the others in turn again.  Same expressions, only the dropped jaws are a little lower, and Jim and Linda are biting their lips even harder.

       “You mean they got into a fist-fight, - right there on the ice!” I chimed in.

       “Oh, there was no fight!  That guy knocked my uncle Joe out cold with that one punch, and then he just let him lay there on the ice.”

       “You mean to tell me that he just took off – and left your uncle stretched out on the ice, unconscious, in the freezing cold?”

       “Oh, he didn’t take off anywhere, – he just sat back down – and started fishing again. – When my uncle finally came to, he looked around, and there the guy sat, fishing away like nothing had happened.” 

       I looked at all the faces around me again.  Now there were four people trying not to bust out laughing. 

       “So, what happened next?  What did your uncle do, once he came to?”

       “Well, he decided he’d had enough for one day, - I guess.  So he got up, picked up all his tackle, and headed back for his truck.”

       “And neither of them ever said one word to the other?”

       “Nope. – Not a word.”

       Well, now I’m totally befuddled, so I ask, “So, - what’s that got to do with your uncle Joe needing new fishing line before he goes out fishing again?” 

       Heather looks at me with this exasperated look on her face.  She rolls her eyes and continues, “Well, when my uncle grabbed his tackle box and rod, tossed them in his bucket and walked off the ice, he didn’t realize that the bail was open on his reel.  So his hook, bait and bobber stayed in the hole, and his line played out as he walked back to the boat landing.  Once he got there, he just tossed all of it in the bed of his pickup and took off, with the line running off his rig as he drove away.  He didn’t notice until it hit the knot at the end and slammed all his gear into the tailgate and flipped his rod out into the ditch about a quarter of a mile down the road.  At that point he didn’t want to try and reel it all back in, so he just stopped, broke the line off, tossed his empty rod back in the truck and took off again.  Just left his line there stretched out to the river.  Can you imagine?!  That’s why he can’t go ice-fishing again until he gets new line on his rod.”

       I look around now, and not only are lips being bitten, but eyes are squeezed shut on faces that are turning red.

       Heather plays her next card, “Fifteen for two. - - Honestly, - - my uncle Joe can be such a jerk sometimes.”

       And that’s when the laughter volcano erupted. 

Something to take home in your creel:

       My mother always told me, “Two wrongs don’t make a right,” to which I’ve added, “and three wrongs can make for a fight!”  It’s probably just as well that Heather’s uncle Joe walked off the ice without pushing things any further that day, even if it did cost him hook, line and sinker to do it.  I don’t think that other guy was in the mood to be taught good manners that morning.  And, even if he was, I don’t think uncle Joe was overly qualified to be the one to teach them to him. 

       I’m guessing that a few honestly spoke words of wisdom would have probably sufficed to settle the whole problem without any rancor at all.  Both men could have fished all day, at a polite distance, and even exchanged pleasantries walking off the ice together, each carrying a bucket full of fish.  But that didn’t happen. 

       Wisdom is in short supply these days, as it always has been, I guess.  I’m pretty sure that we could all do with more of it.  I’m hopeful that at least uncle Joe might have gained a little.  Who knows?  In any event, if he had found wisdom earlier in life – I probably wouldn’t have gotten to hear this story – and that would have been a shame. 

Tinker’s Creek Whirlwind

Something from the tackle box:

       “Go out and stand on the mountain,” The LORD replied.  “I want you to see me when I pass by.”

       All at once, a strong wind shook the mountain and shattered the rocks.  But the LORD was not in the wind.  Next, there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake.  Then there was a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire.

       Finally, there was a gentle breeze, and when Elijah heard it, he covered his face with his coat.  He went out and stood at the entrance to the cave.

       The LORD asked, “Elijah, why are you here?”  (1 Kings 19:11-13 CEV)

 Tinker's Creek Whirlwind

There’s a place where I go to fish for trout,

My favorite spot indeed,

A covered bridge spanning Tinker’s Creek

Shading pools where the browns wait to feed.

It’s a place where I go

For the mid-summer show

Of trout rising again, and again.

To my fly rising now and again.

That old bridge has witnessed a good many strikes,

Tight line and a deeply bent pole,

As I’ve cast to it’s pilings and tempted those trout

Up and out from the depths of their hole.

And, Oh how I’d crow

When up from below

One would offer to prance once again.

On the end of my line dance again. 

Sure, the weather is fickle here where I fish,

Windy days often keep me at bay,

And a season of wind will do even worse,

Weeks on end it might keep me away.

Yet the fish do not go,

And I know they will show,

The next time I fish here, again.

For I fish here again, and again.

But last night’s wind was greater by far,

A whirlwind has torn through my spot.

The shade-trees have toppled and dammed up the stream,

And the old covered bridge is just not.

Oh, how it did blow,

And wrench to and fro,

On that bridge I had come to again.

No more bridge to come to again.

I guess that’s the way of life in this world,

Many things once held dear pass away,

Yet, as with fishing so with life, as each rising sun

Brings the new light of dawn to each day.

The stream will still flow,

And the trout will still grow,

And I will come back here again.

Oh yes, I will fish here again. 

Something to take home in your creel:

       I’m guessing that it will be a season before I can fish my favorite spot again.  Yet, upstream and downstream, there are other good pools undisturbed by the storm in any permanent way.  The water will settle, the fish will rise, and even if the bridge in not rebuilt (although I certainly hope it will be) the stream will still flow, and the trout will still find their crannies to rise from.  God’s power may be shown forth in a whirlwind, but his love is shown forth in the life-giving waters.  

Old Doc and Tom King

Something from the tackle box:

       Expecting snow in summer and rain in the dry season makes more sense than honoring a fool.  A curse you don’t deserve will take wings and fly away like a sparrow or a swallow.  Horses and donkeys must be beaten and bridled – and so must fools.  Don’t make a fool of yourself by answering a fool.  (Proverbs 26:1-4 CEV)

       The nice young man pushed his Old Towne canoe away from the dock.  He paddled out into the early morning mist of a cooler than normal Fourth of July morning on the lake.  It was just starting to get light enough to see, the sun still a good ten minutes away from showing its upper edge over the pine forest that lined the opposite shore of the lake.  Just enough time to paddle up the cottage lined western shore, northward, to Old Doc’s Cove.  It was a good time of day, and Old Doc’s Cove was a good place to toss some cork poppers to the bluegills that would be feeding there in that hour it takes for the rising sun to drive the mist off the water’s surface. 

       It was the nice young man’s regular habit to go fly-fishing for panfish on any morning he didn’t have to get ready for work, even on Sunday mornings, as he didn’t have to start getting himself and family ready for church until nine o’clock or so.  He never missed church with his wife and three boys, even if the fishing was good in the early morning. 

       A nine-foot long fly-rod, a #3 weight Grey’s Streamflex, was the nice young man’s only companion this morning, at least at this point in the outing.  He had a number of fly rods, old and new, to choose from on mornings like this, like a ladies’ man with a little black book of numbers to call on for a Friday night date.  All set up and ready to go, his rig rested with its reel end nestled between his feet, the length angled out and before him supported by the crosstree brace running across the center of the canoe.  His tackle looked as relaxed and ready for the morning at hand as the young man felt. 

       As he paddled along the young man smiled.  He mused to himself, that having the Independence Day Holiday fall on a Sunday this year would have cheated him out of a morning’s fishing if the last contract negotiation hadn’t granted him Monday off as a compensation for this year’s Holiday cohabitating the calendar with his weekly Holy Day.  The weather permitting, tomorrow’s sunrise would greet the young man in the same fashion as it promised to greet him today.  It was a good thought, and he paddled on with long firm strokes. 

       Just a minute or so away from turning in at the mouth of the cove, our young man heard the first buzzings of a potential fly in his Sunday morning ointment; a fly so unlike the bright yellow cork popper, already cinched to the tippet of his rig, that it began turning his smile into a frown just as surely as the rising sun would drive away the morning mist.  It was the voices of two other lake residents, both well known to the nice young man, Doc Mallery and Thomas King. 

       Though still somewhat muffled by the intervening shoreline, cottages and trees, the conversation was unmistakably contentious, judging by the tone and vocabulary that could be picked up on.      

       “Well you’re a fine piece of work, you dumb-ass redneck, rumbling in her in that pig of a tub at this time of the morning!  Rumble, rumble, rumble!  You act like you think you own the whole dang lake, and can ruin everyone’s peaceful morning any time you want, with the noise from that hideous piece of junk you call a bass boat! Oooo, fancy baaaass boooat!”

       “Bugger off, Doc!  You don’t own this cove any more than I own the lake!  I shut down and coasted in before you even came down to your dock, so you didn’t hear a thing, and you know it.  So just shut up and fish where you are, while I fish where I am!”

       “Bugger off yourself!  And don’t rev that dang monstrosity of a barge on your way out, or I’ll call the cops!  There’s no wake allowed this close to the docks!”

       “The only wake in this cove is coming from all the stinky wind blowing out of your big mouth!  I’m fishing right here, where I fish all the time, you old gut-bucket, so get used to it!”

       “Only because you enjoy ruining my fishing, that I’m trying to do, - off – of – my – own – dock, by the way!  Why can’t you catch fish over by where you live!  Probably got ‘em all fished out with all the fancy fish murdering gear you got packed on that nautical eye-sore you zoom around on tryin’ to wipe the whole lake clean of fish!  Leave something for the rest of us, ya greedy, pork rind muchin’ Florida redneck!”

       “Doc, - or should I say, ‘Quack,’ - you’ve been watching me fish here for years, and you know dang well that I release every single fish I ever catch!  Unlike you, you old mud-fish muncher!  But go ahead and keep all of them bottom feedin’ trash fish you want!  It’s no skin off my butt, - or your face, - which are just about the same thing, - ya backwoods bumpkin!”

       Having lived his whole life on this lake, the young man knew both of these old-timers.  He had known one of them for as long as he could remember, Doc having lived on the cove that bore his name for over fifty years.  They were a pair to draw to, those two, for sure. 

       Doc Mallery was the first person to build a house that was nice enough to live in all-year-round on the lake, way back before our nice young man was even born.  It was still considered the second nicest house on the lake, although many others had been built since, including the one our young man lived in.  As the only local dentist in the community, Doc had made a good living over the years and had put most of his income into his lake property, so it was really nice. 

       Ten years ago, at the age of seventy, Doc had sold his dental practice, and now spent all of his days inflicting pain on his fellow lake residents.  Let me explain that statement.  You see, Doc had long ago been judged as the crankiest person in the county, as judged by patient and neighbor alike.  Everyone admitted that he was a good dentist.  In fact, he was noted for doing very fine dental work, with very little physical pain inflicted on his patients, which accounted for his very successful practice.  But his chair-side manner, along with all the other manner that he proffered towards the world around him for that matter, left a whole lot to be desired. 

       How he had managed to woo, wed, and stay married to the sweetest girl in town, a woman regarded as the nicest person in the county by all who know her, was a mystery that very few could ever even begin to unravel, try as they might.  But there you have it!

       Despite his reputation, the nice young man knew Doc to be an “alright guy,” once you got to know him better.  He had fished on Old Doc’s Cove since he was a very young man, and had always been able to talk with Doc, even when Doc was in his crankiest of moods.  You just had to look past the rough manners to see what his wife, Sandy, saw in him.  There was way more there than meets the eye.   

       The other half of this argumentative equation, Tom King, was another story.  Mr. King had bought a lot, and built what was generally regarded as the nicest home on the lake, with part of the fortune he had made as a spectacularly successful luxury auto dealer and real estate speculator down in Florida.  His place was two miles north and the half mile across the lake, on the eastern shore, from the cove he was fishing, and arguing in, now.  Retiring fifteen years ago, at age fifty-five, Tom now spent the good months of May through October, “up north,” on this lake, preferring the weather at his Florida home on Marco Island for the rest of the year. 

       Now, Tom was different than Doc in many ways, and he was generally well liked by all his summer neighbors.  He worked really hard at being likable, as all really good salesmen do.  He was quick with a smile, quick with a handshake, told good stories, and liked listening to what you had to say as well.  Tom would help you with things, joined some of the local organizations, where he helped doing good things with others.  He took his wife to church every Sunday.  Went to the same church our nice young man belonged too.  Tom was a good man on the face of it, as well as underneath, just like Doc was a good man underneath, but not so much on the face of it. 

       That’s not to say that Tom was without fault.  He wasn’t.  The air of self-confidence that Tom possessed, an air so common and necessary to the success of any good salesman, often seemed to tip over into the realm of arrogant and overbearing braggadocio, especially to those who don’t care for salesman personalities, of which Doc was certainly one.  Tom’s personal taste in clothing, jewelry, cars, boats, homes, and just about anything else he owned, did tend towards the flashy - if not the downright ostentatious, another strike against him in Doc’s book.  And probably his biggest fault, at least in the mind of our nice young man, was that Tom really did fancy himself to be a much better fisherman than he actually was!

       Tom really did suppose, that if he hadn’t been so busy making a fortune in limos and land down in Florida, he would have certainly been a leading moneymaker on the professional bass fishing tournament circuit.  He did have the gear for it, top of the line boat, tackle, fish-finders and such.  And he did use them a lot, spending most of his free time in Florida and up north, plying the local waters for bass of both greater and lesser mouth size variations. 

       Tom King loved fishing for bass! But, as our young man knew, Tom King wasn’t really any better at it, for all that he put into it time and money-wise, than the young man’s oldest boy, floating around the lake in an inner-tube tossing rubber worms at weed beds with his ten dollar Zebco rod and reel. 

       “But what did that matter in the end?” thought the nice young man, “Is Tom’s love of fishing any less important to him, than mine is to me?  As Thoreau had first noted generations ago, ‘Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.’”

       “Well,” the young man mumbled to himself, “I might as well turn around and find some peaceful fishing in my second favorite spot to work the old buggy whip, back at Delmar’s Cove.  Just thirty yards from where I started out!  The sunrise feeding frenzy will be half over by the time I get back there, I suppose.  But, - anyway, - I guess I’ll paddle up and say, ‘Hi,’ to each of these miscreants in turn, before I make my exit.  If they can’t find it in themselves to observe the finer points of the Honorable Brotherhood of Hook and Line’s code of social conduct when meeting on the water, I guess it’s up to me to set a better example.” 

        The young man glided on up to the retired salesman first, Tom’s bass boat being just off the near shore of the cove, as he turned the corner to paddle in.

       “Hey there, Tom.  How’s the fishin’ this morning?”

       “Oh, hi there!  The fishing is actually pretty good.  I’ve boated and let go three nice ones already!” (Then turning his head and projecting his voice towards Doc’s dock) “The fishing’s good, - but the company is lousy!  Just like it always is in Old Quack’s Cove, when the Old Quack is out on his dock!”

       “Kiss my bass!” came the reply from forty yards away. 

       “Ya know, Tom, I can’t figure out why you keep dropping in on this spot.  It’s the same story every time.  You and Doc just end up abusing each other the whole time you’re fishing here.  You’ve got a six hundred acre lake, with lots of great bass spots, and you’ve got the boat to get to any one of them in ten minutes.  Why, there’s three spots within a quarter mile of your own place that are every bit as good as this old cove.  You don’t have to even see Doc when you’re out fishing, cuz Doc only ever fishes off of his own dock.  Why antagonize the guy?  It doesn’t seem like it could be fun for you. – Or am I wrong about that?”

       “Oh no!  I hate all this arguing, - BUT – I’ve got as much right to fish here as anyone else!  Old Doc’s name might be on this cove, but he doesn’t own the water!  As long as I stay fifty feet away from his dock, I can fish here all day long if I feel like it.  And I’m not going to let that old sucker-muncher badger me out of it. Turning his head and projecting again)  Did you hear that, - you old sucker-muncher!”

       “I heard it, - you old fish murderin bass turd!” came the reply from Doc’s dock. 

       “Well, I guess you’ve got your point to make.  But I sure don’t get it.  Will I be seeing you and Tanya at church later this morning?”

       “Sure, sure!  We’ll be there by nine thirty.  We’re setting up for the coffee hour after the service.  Everything’s all already to go.  See you then, good buddy, and I hope you get some big slabber ‘gills before you go back in.  Got to keep those three little ones full of fish, eh!”

       The nice young man moved away in the direction of Doc’s lawn chair outpost at the end of his dock.  Half a dozen paddle dips and he was back-paddling to hover near the old dentist.

       Doc actually was a bottom-fish eater, just as Tom so often accused him of being in their ongoing argument.  Mostly he fished for the redhorse suckers that came out into the sandy shallows of the cove from the stream that ran along one edge of Doc’s property and opened out into the lake, creating the cove that bore Doc’s name.  Doc’s wife, Sandy, canned those Redhorse suckers, mixed with spicy mustards and relishes, into something very special.  In fact, Sandy’s canned sucker was considered a real gourmet treat whenever she provided it to be eaten on fancy crackers at the coffee hour after church.  Old Tom King never hurled out the epitath of “sucker-muncher” at himself when he was stuffing his face with that fine fare after a service.  Those redhorse were Doc’s prime target when he was fishing, but he didn’t have anything against fried catfish for dinner either, if he happened to get one of those with the worms that he fished flat on the bottom of the cove. 

       “Hey there, Doc, how ya doin this morning?”

       “Shove off, will ya!  You’re scarin all the redhorse away from my bait!” 

       “I’ll be out of your way in a minute.  I Just wanted to say ‘hi’ before I tried to get some shallow gills to go for a popper down there, - just like I always do, Doc.  Say, ya know that Tom isn’t taking any of your redhorse out of the cove.  He’s strictly a crank-baiting bass man.  Why do you harass him so bad every time he fishes over here?” 

       Following Tom’s example, Doc answered the question loudly, face turned towards his verbal adversary.  “Cuz he’s an obnoxious, fish murderin, fish hog!  That’s why!  The props on that ugly boat of his alone kill more fish than all the hooks and lines that go into this lake put together!”  Turning back to the young man, he added, “He’s not a sporting fisherman, - like you and me.”

       Our young man couldn’t miss the irony of this statement, arising from the fact that both he and Doc did fish for the pot, mostly, while Tom did release pretty much everything he caught.

       “Come on, Doc.  You know that isn’t so.  Tom may have the fastest fishing boat on the lake, but he doesn’t have the only one.  He doesn’t churn up the water any worse than many others you know.”

       “But they don’t do it here in front of my dock, - at least not all that much.  HE’S here every other dang day, churning everything up!  And he does it just to get under my skin!  Well, he’s not going to get away with it without hearing about it whenever I’m on my dock!”

       “Whatever, Doc.  Will I be seeing the lovely and charming Mrs. Mallery at church later?”  (They young man already knew the answer to his question.  Sandy Mallery never missed church.)

       “Of course.”

       “Great.  Why don’t you join her some Sunday, Doc?  We’d love to have you.”  (The young man already knew the response to this question as well.)

       “Never gonna happen, Pal.  Now get out of the way of my fishing!  The bluegills are over there!”  Doc jerked his thumb in the direction of the lily pads on the far side of the cove, which is right where our nice young man had originally intended to fish.

       “I think I’ll head back towards my place, and fish around Delmar’s Cove, instead.  Don’t want to crowd you, or Tom, seein as how you’re all gettin along so well this morning.  See ya later, Doc.”

       The young man paddled off towards the mouth of the cove and the shoreline leading back south.  With his back to the dueling duo, he listened as the verbal war heated up again.

       “….You old backwoods, mud-fish muncher!....”

       “….You old red-necked, big mouthed, bass murderin!....”

       As the young man paddled past the first cottage just south of the cove’s mouth, he spotted Sally O’Neil, reading her morning paper on the porch by the light of the rising sun.

       “Good morning, Sally.”

       “Good morning to you as well.  Can you believe the racket those two idiots make?  I thought the fireworks weren’t supposed to go off until tonight.  It’s the third time in the last six days they’ve been at it like this.  Can you believe that I come up here all the way from Grand Rapids, a week out of every month, just to get away from the big city noise?  Sure makes it hard to enjoy a cup of coffee and the morning paper on your own cottage porch, - let me tell you.” 

       “I know, Sally, - I know. – You should try living up here with them full time.” 

       “What a pair of fools, - that’s what I say!” 

Something to take home in your creel:

       Two, otherwise goodhearted and decent humans, sure can be hard to figure out when they just don’t like each other at all for some reason or another.  If you don’t believe it to be the case, just ask any small-town church pastor if it isn’t so. 

Fishing in a Magical Kingdom

Something from the tackle box:

       Leopards will lie down with young goats, and wolves will rest with lambs.  Calves and lions will eat together and be cared for my little children.  Cows and bears will share the same pasture; their young will rest side by side.  Lions and oxen will both eat straw.  Little children will play near snake holes.  They will stick their hands into dens of poisonous snakes and never be hurt.  Nothing harmful will take place on the Lord’s holy mountain.  Just as water fills the sea, the land will be filled with people who know and honor the Lord.  (Isaiah 11:6-9 CEV)

       I recently returned home to Lake Odessa from a week spent enjoying the hospitality and amenities of Central Florida, which is a nice place to spend a week in mid-February when you’re from Michigan.  The weather was grand, the theme parks were fun, and the company I kept was very good, just as it has been on each of my trips to the Orlando area, made every other winter for the past sixteen years now.  So, let me explain my habit of biannual trips to the world in and around Disney’s Kingdom, before I get into my subject matter of fishing proper, just so you can figure out where I’m coming from on this story. 

       My younger brother, Joe, has been the music teacher and band director at Lake Michigan Catholic Schools, in St. Joseph, Michigan, since he graduated from college with a music teaching degree way back in 1981.  That’s thirty-six years, to date, of working with the young musicians learning the art of marching and concert performance at LMCS (as well as many years coaching the girls varsity basketball team).  It has been a very successful gig for Joe, attested to by the fact that, during his tenure, over half of the students enrolled at the High School have been involved in band from year to year, some years, well over half.  Band is a big thing at LMCS, and the program that my little brother has built up there is largely responsible for that.  Mr. Jarvie is an institution at LMCS, and those of us who claim kinship with him are rightly proud of his accomplishments. 

       Early on in his tenure as a band teacher, my brother started organizing these mid-winter trips so that his students could experience performing a concert at a nice venue far away from home, as well as spend time learning together, having fun, and developing that ‘esprit de corps’ which is needed for any group to reach that next level of competent performance.  It has worked well for the music program at LMCS, and is one of the big reasons over half of the student body participates in band most years. 

       Of course, trips like these require a lot of organization, work, and adult supervision, to pull off in a way that leaves school staff, administration, parents, as well as the students themselves, satisfied with the all the results, not to mention enthusiastic about repeating the whole process again two years down the road.  Enter big brother, Mark (known as “brother Jarvie,” to the students, as opposed to “Mr. Jarvie,” their teacher) recruited as a volunteer bus and event chaperone for the two, twenty-four hour long, bus rides that get us to Orlando and back, as well as our days at the theme parks, learning sessions with Disney teaching staff, small group side events, dinners out, and our visit to Church services at Mary Queen of the Universe Shrine in Orlando. 

       It has been my great pleasure to serve in this capacity of being an ‘overseer of the youth’ on nine of these trips, so far.  It’s a lot of responsibility but, generally, pretty easy duty.  I certainly hope to go on one or two more of these trips before my brother’s anticipated retirement about four years from now.  My wife tried it with me once and swore, “never again,” but I treasure the experiences that I’ve had, on each and every one of these trips, as having been grand!  In any event, that’s how I got to central Florida for a week this past month.  Now, on to some reflections about fishing that I made while I was there. 

        Despite its reputation as a fishing Mecca, I have only been able to spend a couple of days fishing in the State of Florida – and these have not come while serving as a chaperone on my brother’s band trips.  Easy duty or not, there isn’t time for a fishing excursion on an official ‘overseer of the students’ daily activity schedule.  So, I leave my tackle at home.  But that doesn’t mean that fishing isn’t on my mind!

       It is actually possible to fish right at Disney World.  If you are staying at one of their resort centers, you can book guided catch and release bass fishing excursions that ply the waters in and around several of the parks.  I’ve actually witnessed people enjoying themselves in this way right in the waterway that feeds the lake around which the Epcot Center’s World Showcase is located.  Happy people catching and releasing nice fish right between France and England.  Sort of a ‘fishing the English Channel’ experience, in miniature, I suppose.  While there were no fishing excursion boats there for me to watch on this last trip, I did notice some fishing tackle set up for display by the seawall on the France side of the channel.  It’s a nice touch.

       The fishing theme also gets represented right in a couple of the attractions at the parks as well.  One of my favorite rides at Disney’s Magic Kingdom Park is Splash Mountain.  I always make it a point to salute the fishing gulls on my gentle boat ride towards the big drop at Br’er Rabbit Falls.  It’s only good manners when you meet fellow practitioners of the piscatorial arts when on the water.  The gulls always return the favor by singing “How Do You Do?” as I float by, which I think is nice.  “Good fishing to you, boys!”

       Aside from the “fishing” theme, there are also just   Fish are easily spotted in bodies of water not used for nighttime fireworks displays at several parks.  There are a couple of nice “underwater” viewing stations to watch some nice sized South American pacu swim around from at Disney’s Animal Kingdom, and throngs of native Florida fish crowd the waters looking for handouts under the bridge that you cross making the loop around Universal Studio’s Islands of Adventure park.  (Please don’t feed the fish!)  But the place I want to mention in particular is ‘The Seas with Nemo & Friends’ attraction at Epcot Center.  Formerly ‘The Living Seas,’ (a name that I personally much preferred) ‘The Seas with Nemo and Friends’ is an exhibit that I always spend some time at when visiting Epcot for a couple of reasons. 

a lot of FISH to be seen at the parks.

       The first, and less important reason, is that it is a really nice aquarium, with a multitude of very beautiful fish and other marine life to be seen in very beautiful (albeit, manmade) environments.  Disney is rightfully famous for first-class attractions, and ‘The Seas’ is no exception.  There are bigger and more up-to-date aquariums out there to visit, one right there in Orlando, but ‘The Seas’ is just right in my book. 

       Which brings me to the second, and more important, reason I like ‘The Seas’, a reason that many haggard parents carting small toddlers around Disney World have discovered as well.  It is quiet, - and peaceful, - and relaxed, inside ‘The Seas’.  The lighting is dim.  There is no piped-in background music.  Adults whisper when talking there.  Crying toddlers calm right down.  Some youngsters even lie down on the ledge in front of the viewing widows and take a nap.  Overtired babies being rocked in Parent’s arms finally drop off to sleep.  And the fish – even the carnivorous ones – like sharks and barracuda – swim around and around – all together – in peace! 

 

Something to take home in your creel: 

       It’s somewhat counterintuitive, to my way of thinking, that I should be able to experience the same feelings of serene union with God’s creation at a Disney World attraction, that I find fly-fishing for trout in the early morning mist on my favorite secluded stream.  It is a fact strange oddly strange to my mind.  But then, I guess, peace is found where peace is found.